Sunday, January 31, 2010

100 Books by 10-10-10: Throwing down the Gauntlet

Here's something I did not know about the phenomena known as Social Media: It is awash in challenges. In the past few months I have been made aware of the following blogging challenges:

Blogging every day for a month - I was not even remotely tempted.

Cleaning out the backlog of unfinished posts - yeah right, I will get on that one as soon as I get around to putting my Christmas decorations from 2008 away.

Commenting on at least five blogs a day – I actually signed up for that one, and I may have met the quota, but I lost interest in keeping track. I usually don’t have too much trouble blathering on other people’s blogs, as a matter-of-fact there may be several restraining orders pending to get me to stop. I do believe I got a few comments on this blog because of the challenge, and I became aware of several dandy blogs. My favorite being Literate Lives, run by a 5th grade teacher and elementary Librarian in Ohio, Karen and Bill. I am such a fan of their blog I can’t even begin to say. They do what I wish I could get around to doing on this blog, but can’t seem to stay focused enough.

At the beginning of this weekend my sister made me aware of challenge which I could not resist. I mentioned before in this blog that I am at a complete loss of self-control when faced with a list. Whether it is making list a list of some sort of favorite, or watching a grand countdown, my attention will be swallowed whole and I will be incapable of doing anything else until the criteria are met. The challenge described in this article is the 10-10-10 READING CHALLENGE – 10 BOOKS IN 10 GENRES BY 10-10-10. This challenge for our decennial year has the lovely rounded symmetry that can’t help but ensnare any OCD-minded book-enthusiast.

The rules are thus: Choose 10 genres of your own making and read 10 books in each genre by Oct. 10th of this year. The genres can be creative and should be outside of your routine reading sphere. This theoretically adds up to 100 books in less than 10 months. This may seem quite ambitious for someone who has previously admitted to belonging to the dyslexia spectrum. How then can I possible hope to achieve victory? I plan to cheat, naturally. I will also be counting books “read” with my auditory sense, AKA audio books. Also if a book happens to fit in more than one list, well obviously it will get a place in each of them. A book can’t help it if it’s popular. I am stopping short of counting the many, many picture books I read although if one happens to belong on the non-fiction shelf, well then of course it counts. And admittedly a few of the genres are not outside of my reading comfort zone.

My 10 Genres are:

1. NON-FICTION/MEMOIR/AUTOBIOGRAPHY/BIOGRAPHY: nonfiction really is my Achilles heel and something I’ve been trying to incorporate more of in my reading log. Haven’t been doing so well - 10 sounds like a good start.

2. NEWBERY/HONORS HERETOFORE NEVER READ: Sure I’m great at reading the books before they are chosen but what about all those who came before. I know a few people who can boast that they have read every Newbery to date – show offs. I will be able to hold my chin high when I add 10 more. In fact I may make this an ongoing challenge for the years to come. With a finite number I’m sure to catch up at some point before the grim reaper calls.

3. FIRST IN SERIES OF EARLY CHAPTER BOOKS: Don’t think I can’t hear you sniggering at this category. Sure most of these books will have less than 100 hundred pages along with plenty of page-filling art, but don’t think this won’t be a challenge on my part. I am doing this purely for my students. There are many series on our shelves that I know nothing about. I hope to discover a few gems I can pass onto my 2nd and 3rd graders.

4. GRAPHIC NOVELS: After trying to convince parents and teachers that reading books with speech bubbles is just as valid as any other sort of reading it is time I put my eyeballs where my mouth is. Sure reading graphic novels take more brain effort than reading straight text, that is why I have so much trouble with it.

5. DEBUT AUTHORS: If it is the first book an author had published, it goes on the list. I’m a bit giddy here. I have friend whose first book is going to be released on 10-01-10 by Scholastic and I will have the thrill of putting it in my tally. In fact I don’t even need to wait because I have an early ARC (suck on that you Conspiracy of Kings show-offs).

6. 2010 TITLES: Obviously this is no sacrifice as I’m always on the quest of ferreting out the next Newbery. But really shouldn’t I get some credit somewhere?

7. NON-US AUTHORS: This is a sacrifice as naturally none of these will be Newbery worthy, but I’m reading a monstrous 500+ page book right now by a British author and I insist that it will count for something. (Are you noticing that I’m getting some sort of sick satisfaction in having my leisure time activates all of a sudden “count”?)

8. FOUND IN ADULT SECTION (adult as in grown-up not racy): The biggest sacrifice of all.

9. PUBLISHED BEFORE MY BIRTH – 1963: I noticed that this is a big deficit in my reading history. I’m sure a few good things appeared before I did.

10. 10 OLDEST BOOKS ON GOODREADS TBR SHELF: I will be like cleaning house. Without this challenge I may never get to the Le Guin that has been there forever and if I never get it read I’m in big danger of losing a few friends.

There it is. What do you think? Do you want to play to? Run over to 10-10-10 READING CHALLENGE and sign up. Apparently we can keep in touch on Twitter. I can be found @librariest, but I'm not very well versed in using it and you may be disappointed. Just for Kicks and Giggles I will be posting my progress monthly on this here blog.

About Me

I work as a librarian at a K-6 elementary school. I see over 900 students a week. During which I wheedle, coax, and cajole them into believing that there is nothing better for their intellectual growth, mental health, personal enjoyment, future earning potential, and complextion than a steady diet of reading whatever excites them.
I am pretty much incapable of carrying on a conversation that is not in some way related to children’s literature. I detest social functions which might involve me making small talk with someone who has never heard of Mo Willems, Jon Scieszka, Lois Lowry, or Jane Yolen. I’ve started this blog in an attempt to carry on the conversations I would like to have at parties, even if I do just end up talking to myself.